


Pumpkin carving

by Tethys_resort



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Autumn, Fluff, Halloween, Holidays, M/M, Pumpkin carving, The Great Pumpkin, headless horseman - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-01-13 08:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21241490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tethys_resort/pseuds/Tethys_resort
Summary: Pumpkin carving in Imladris.  Pure fluff.Chapter 2: now with even more fluff of the Glorfindel/Erestor sort.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings - I can't think of any, but if you have questions you are always welcome to contact me.

Elrond had always felt that raising the various generations of Elros’ descendants had its own special responsibilities. The first and most obvious was to raise them into healthy and happy adults. The next to make sure they were educated befitting their station (even if they did spend most of their adult lives in the wilderness). Lastly, these children were young Men, meant to be the rulers of Men, and had to learn Mannish customs. 

So in good conscience, Elrond could not simply let Estel only learn about Elvish autumn customs: leaf turning parties, all the wonderful autumn songs, sweets, bonfires and harvest festivals. They also had to do Mannish things such as wear costumes and carve pumpkins for the season.

Over the centuries, the added Mannish customs for each season and holiday had become part of the fabric of Imladris, baffling the occasional visitor from the Greenwood or Lothlorien who witnessed the Great Spring Egg Hunt, maypole dances and kite flying competitions. About a thousand years ago King Thranduil had laughed himself sick at the decorated evergreens for Yule. (And then sighed resignedly when his children had immediately adopted the custom.)

Erestor was eyeing the newly arrived cartload of pumpkins with a certain amount of supreme doubt. He gave Glorfindel a dour look and said, “I do not know why you have such a fascination for slicing up cattle food. Every year we end up covered in pumpkin pulp, with hideous excuses for lit sculptures.” 

Glorfindel turned his eyes from the cart and gave his mate a happy grin. “It’s pretty!” He leaned in to whisper, “Besides I know you have just as much fun as I do.”

Erestor smiled slightly and snorted. “Are you going to carve your pumpkin as you usually do?”

The arrival of the cart had attracted the attention of Elladan and Elrohir and they brought Estel down to the courtyard. When he spotted the pumpkins, Estel whooped and ran to the cart, climbing up the side to see its contents.

Elladan said, “Ada decided that this year you are old enough to carve pumpkins. You are lucky, we didn’t get to carve pumpkins until we were 2100 years old!”

Erestor muttered, “That’s because we didn’t start this ridiculous custom until then.”

Elrohir grinned at Estel where he hung off the side of the cart and said, “You should pick out the perfect one. We’ll help you carve if you want.”

Estel stared at his twin foster brothers and then looked questioningly at Elrond. Elrond smiled, “Estel, are you going to choose your pumpkin? We were intending to let you go first.”

With a wide grin, Estel started examining pumpkins. 

***

After centuries of experience Elrond had learned a few things about “pumpkin carving”. 

-Pumpkin carving is best done in the main dining hall with plenty of room and tables. The first few attempts had pumpkins carved as they were balanced randomly on the edge of the cart, the ground and various benches and fence posts in the garden. Not a few pumpkins had rolled over from a height and smashed when the elf doing the carving had backed up to check their work from a distance. 

It had taken Erestor a week to forgive Glorfindel for stepping back to admire his pumpkin on a bench and inadvertently treading on Erestor’s where it sat on the ground. Elrond snickered as he remembered: he is pretty certain that he knew exactly how Glorfindel had worked his way back into his mate’s good graces. 

-The first year they had discarded the pumpkin pulp and seeds. The kitchen crew had had massive fits over the loss of the pumpkin seeds. Now buckets were set out. 

-Sharp knives and hard orange spheres are not a promising combination, but much better than dull knives.

-That said, Elrond had discovered that even being the Lord of Imladris was not enough to save you from an angry Head Cook if you borrowed all the kitchen knives without asking. 

-After a young Araglas had nightmares for the next week, Elladan and Elrohir were not allowed to refer to pumpkin carving as “pumpkin disemboweling”. Nor the pulp as “pumpkin brains”. 

-It turned out that Maglor has a talent for carving probably inherited from his mother and honed with the fine motor skills of a musician. After 10 years Elrond said, “Ada, please, PLEASE choose a happy topic or face for your pumpkin, you are making people cry.”

-No contests over “best pumpkin” unless he wants duels fought over artistic merit. 

-As Lord of Imladris, he MUST carve a pumpkin each year as well. No exceptions. 

This year seemed to be going smoothly. Elrond helped Estel cut the lid of his pumpkin and then Estel carefully pulled out the pulp and scraped the interior clean. He seemed undecided about the design he wanted on his pumpkin though, and flitted about the Hall asking questions, occasionally running back to stare at his pumpkin. 

“Elladan? Elrohir? What are you carving?” Estel was carefully poking at the leering face Elladan had carved. Elrond, trying to decide if he was carving his running horse lopsided, kept one ear on the conversation. He would rather avoid nightmares.

Elladan grinned, “We’re making faces. So the ghost horsemen of Men can wear them.”

Fortunately, Estel seemed more fascinated than disturbed by the idea of ghost horsemen. “Why would they wear pumpkins?”

Elrohir, carefully giving his pumpkin a toothy and decidedly manic grin, laughed. He said, “Because the ghost horsemen have no heads of their own and so wear these so they can see.”

Estel frowned, “How would you see with a pumpkin? It doesn’t really have eyes either.”

Erestor, down the table working on the silhouette of a mountain range said, “It is a myth Estel, a story meant to explain natural phenomena or teach a lesson. In this case, it is meant to explain will-o-wisps or swamp lights. They travel above the water in a swamp and foolish Men seeing them from a distance think they are ghosts or monsters.”

Like every other time Erestor began a random lesson, Estel listened with deep interest. Erestor continued, “The whole custom started with the idea of scaring off lost souls or evil things. In other places Men light candles to attract dead relatives home though, so I don’t think Men have their stories straight. Men have the Gift from Eru, so their souls don’t go flying around willy-nilly anyways.”

“Maybe the candles in the pumpkins do both and they bring people you want to see but scare everyone else away?” Estel seemed a little out of his depth but was gamely giving the ideas thought. 

Glorfindel chuckled. “I like that idea.” 

Whereas everyone else in the Hall had carefully cut the top of the pumpkin out, Glorfindel had delicately bisected his with his sword. The two halves lay out like a pair of matched orange bowls. He was busy cutting flowers into both halves with a kitchen knife. Elrond wasn’t sure how he managed but every year the flowers all matched up between the top and bottom.

Lindir added in, “Estel, tonight we are going to have storytelling with our lit pumpkins. Do you have a story you want to hear this time?” Lindir was covered in pumpkin and had an ear to ear grin. He was an excellent pumpkin carver but very messy. 

Estel looked at the dripping pulp and backed up a step. “Can I think about it?” He ran off to look at other pumpkins being carved about the hall. 

Glorfindel said, “I actually like the Mannish song about the ghost and horse without a head. That’s the one where he’s always trying to find his actual head before he can take the Gift of Men?”

Erestor shook his head. “Overly romantic. If he is dead, why does he care about the location of his head? It’s not like he’s using it anymore.”

Estel had bounced back up to his pumpkin and stared at it hard before trotting back to where Elrond and Maglor were working. “Ada? Grandfather? How do you make a complicated pattern?”

Maglor said, “Use a charcoal stick to draw the pattern first, and then cut along the lines. But the first time you carve a pumpkin you should choose something easy to cut.”

Estel tilted his head in thought. “Like a happy face?” he pointed at Elrohir’s creation. 

Elrond wasn’t sure his son hadn’t carved something terrifying but said, “Yes, like that. Would you like me to help you?”

“No. I want to try drawing it myself first.” Estel returned to his pumpkin and stared at it with a level gaze. Seeing that look, Elrond got a glimpse of the determination the child would have as an adult and smiled.

Estel called, “Ada? What happens if you do it wrong?”

Elrond was about to respond when Maglor said, “A giant pumpkin comes and judges your efforts. If you put in good effort, no matter how skilled or unskilled your carving, the pumpkin gifts you with sweets.”

The entire table stared at the ancient elf peacefully cutting an ornate latticework of interlocking maple leaves. Maglor ignored them and continued, “So if you do your very best it will be fine.”

Estel looked at Elrond. “Ada?”

Elrond smiled and said as firmly as possible, “I concur. A pumpkin will bring sweets if you put your best effort forth.” He’ll just have to expand the tradition a little…

Estel bent to his carving with a happy smile.

***

Many years later….

Faramir blinked, “My Lord, you and the Queen want to do WHAT with pumpkins?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No sooner had I put up the short story (only meant to be one chapter) when a friend said, "Knowing you, what Elrond thinks Glorfindel did to cheer up Erestor and what actually happened are two weirdly different things. Well, yeah....

Glorfindel hadn’t meant to tread on Erestor’s pumpkin. And he certainly hadn’t meant to plant the second foot in its remains as he flailed for footing in the slippery mess. 

The resulting verbal explosion had been heard well beyond the bounds of the Last Homely House and covered the profanity of no fewer than five different languages. Elladan and Elrohir had even snagged young Araglas between them and fled at a run. 

So far it had been a week and Erestor was still mad. He took out his ire on a large selection of the House of Elrond and Imladris at large: surprise inventories, sudden inspections of the attics and ordering an audit of the payroll. The scribes were suddenly much busier, fortunately for them no major irregularities had been found. 

Familiar with Erestor in all moods and having NOTHING to do with the incident except providing pumpkins, Elrond watched Erestor storm about and tried not to laugh. His only comment, as both watched Erestor stomp past with an armload of papers: “Glorfindel, you did it. You fix it.”

Glorfindel understood the desire to rant, Erestor had spent hours on that pumpkin before its demise at his big feet. 

He had the thought that it wasn’t so much that Erestor was still angry at him as he was upset with himself for losing his temper in such a massive way in front of most of the Last Homely House and a good chunk of the population of the rest of Imladris. 

After all, that night when they had gone to bed Erestor hadn’t said a word but stretched out protectively around him, hugging him in a death grip. (It didn’t seem to matter to the attempt that Erestor was a little shorter and much slighter in build and ended up stretched out like a mate-shaped blanket.) It was harder to take “the love of my life is mad at me” to heart when he did things like that.

Erestor is usually sarcastic and caustic but prides himself on his self-control. And the pumpkin explosion had been anything except controlled. 

After a week of glowering, silence, curt one-word answers, and skipped meals in favor of paperwork, it had gotten ridiculous and Glorfindel figured he needed to do something to try and convince his mate to let up on himself (and all the rest of Imladris). 

So that evening he showed up in their rooms with a book of the worst poetry on offer from the Library (he got the Head Librarian to help), dinner on a tray and a brand new sweet the Head Cook had been working on as an invention. He even asked Elrond to send Erestor to their rooms (instead of skipping dinner in favor of yet more paperwork). 

He hoped the sheer novelty of the minor adventure would cheer up his mate. 

Glorfindel set the tray with dinner and sweets on the side table in front of his mate and poked up the fire a little. Dinner was made of things to toast over the fire and definitely needed a good bank of coals. Erestor was reading an account book and didn’t even look up. 

After watching the fixed way Erestor was staring at the pages for a minute, Glorfindel sat down on the couch and scooted down so that he was snuggled up against his mate. Erestor shot him a cold look before going back to his book. Glorfindel would have been hurt by his reception but their mate bond was leaking unsteady, shaky unhappiness. 

Instead, Glorfindel very gently forced their bond wider and projected love and acceptance down it toward his distressed mate. He held his breath, waiting for the response. It came first in the form of a quiet sigh and Erestor leaning his head against the offered shoulder. Good, maybe this will be easier than he thought and they’ll skip the argument.

Erestor muttered, “I’m still upset.”

Glorfindel kissed the closest ear and picked up the book of poetry. “You can be upset, just forgive me and yourself.” Then, smiling tentatively, “I brought you dinner and bad poetry.”

“Why in the name of the Valar would I want bad poetry?”

Glorfindel’s grin widened: bait taken. Erestor is now offended by the presence of bad poetry rather than himself or Glorfindel. “I thought I would read it with great drama and emotion. And you could make cutting remarks about it!”

Erestor just stared for a moment before setting down his book. “Okay, I’m waiting.”

Glorfindel tried to keep a straight face and dramatically somber tone but by the third or fourth wretched poem he was having to stifle giggles. Finally, he stopped and simply showed Erestor the next lines.

“‘As she walks twin tender orbs jostle and jounce like happy kittens at play, her eyes glow like the moon with the break of day….’ Seriously? What species of female was the author trying to describe? Is this romance or horror? For whatever reason did we keep this book in collection?”

Glorfindel snickered. “The Head Librarian said they keep it for entertainment and lessons in what NOT to do in writing.”

Erestor shook his head before sighing and starting to snicker too. “The truly sad part is that every library has finite space…. Please tell me the author is either dead or Sailed. If they live in Imladris I may never be able to look them in the eyes again.”

Laughing, Glorfindel put the book down, got out one of their bottles of wine, and picked up one of the toasting forks he had borrowed from the kitchen. “Let’s eat.”

After the first couple of toasted items they moved onto cushions closer to the fire, the easier to cook dinner.

By the time they had finished off the bottle of wine and stuffed themselves, Glorfindel and Erestor were curled up together in front of the fire and good naturedly debating whether carrots were meant to be roasted over coals. 

The last item on the tray was a large soup tureen. Erestor picked up the lid and eyed the contents before gingerly reaching in and poking the white powdery cubes. “This is the new sweet?”

“Yes, Cook calls them ‘marshmallows’ for their texture.”

Erestor picked one up and squished it between his fingers before sniffing it carefully. “Elrond makes some sort of throat something with marshmallows.”

“I got the impression this contains sugar and gelatin, not the flowers. He said to roast them over the fire so they were lightly toasted before eating.” Glorfindel selected a cube and gingerly impaled it on his fork. “What height do you suppose I should hold it over the coals?”

As Erestor watched closely, Glorfindel extended the fork. As it immediately burst into flames Erestor said, “Evidently, not that close.”

Several attempts later Glorfindel grumbled, “These are really easy to light on fire. Are we supposed to be doing this inside?” Glorfindel blew frantically on the flaming ball of sugar and then eyed the charred mess. “I think this one turned out a little better.”

“How?” Erestor was carefully suspending his latest attempt high above the coals and pulling it back every minute or so to examine it for signs of overheating. 

After carefully tapping off charred bits Glorfindel stuck a piece of the marshmallow in his mouth. “Oh! Erestor, this is good!” He shoved the marshmallow towards Erestor, who eyed it skeptically before nibbling on an edge. 

The nibble turned into a rather large bite and Erestor chewed happily before moving his marshmallow a little closer to the fire. “How hard did Cook say these are to make?”


End file.
